


Point Me to the Skies

by squilf



Category: Luther (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, general sadness over ripley damn you neil cross, takes place after series 3 so yeah spoilers ahead captain, things that could have been and things that went unspoken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-25 00:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squilf/pseuds/squilf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Justin Ripley’s family think his ashes were buried alongside his grandparents.</p><p>There are two people who know that this isn’t true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Point Me to the Skies

“It’s tomorrow, you know,” says Alice.

She’s just out of the shower, warm and wet and sweet-smelling, sitting on John’s bed like it’s hers. John looks over from the stove.

“What?” he says.

“They’re going to burn your puppy.”

“And?”

“Oh, but you have to go,” Alice presses.

“Actually, I don’t. Just like you don’t have to be in prison for multiple counts of murder. Unless I hand you in.”

“You wouldn’t dare. And that isn’t my point.”

“Really?”

“My point is that he loved you, and you loved him. You should say goodbye.”

“You make it sound like we were a couple.”

“Weren’t you?”

“I’m not the type to have an affair with a colleague.”

“No, that was just Zoe’s thing.”

John folds his arms.

“Are you done?”

Alice throws him a disarming smile.

“Never.”

 

 

John goes to the bloody funeral. He spends the whole service wishing he hadn’t. He sits at the back of the chapel, looks at no-one, talks to no-one. There’s flowers everywhere, from family, friends, strangers who’d seen on the news that a young police officer had been killed in the line of duty. Justin’s father talks about how good a son Justin was, how everyone loved him, how we should all be glad for his life, not mourn his death. A gaggle of children – Justin’s nieces and nephews, probably – read a poem, leave notes and drawings on the coffin. Everyone sings _Abide With Me_. John feels sick. The ceremony ends, and he all but runs to the door. Doesn’t want to see the way Justin’s mother looks at him when she realises he’s the man responsible for her son’s death. Doesn’t want to hear Justin’s father politely inviting him to have something to eat at their house.

Then, he sees him. Justin. Just standing there, by his coffin, hands in his pockets – and that was the first thing he ever taught Justin, wasn’t it, keep your hands in your pockets at a crime scene, back when all he knew about the kid was that he was kind and he was good and that he probably cared a little bit too much about him – but no, _no_ , it’s not Justin, because of course it fucking isn’t. The dead stay dead and you keep a photo of them in your flat because that’s all you’ve got left of them now, you haven’t got a person to invite up and make coffee for and tell them you love them. John looks at the man again. He looks like Justin, but his hair is jaw-length, his eyes blue. He catches John staring.

“Sorry,” says John, “You reminded me of him.”

The man nods, smiles, and God, he _could_ be Justin.

“I’m Neil,” he says, shakes his hand.

“John Luther.”

Neil looks John up and down, takes him in.

“Course you are.”

“Did you want to go get a coffee or something? I can’t stand these things, everyone standing around eating cucumber sandwiches, trying to think of something to say.”

“Been to too many funerals?”

“Comes with the job.”

Neil stiffens a little, his mouth set in a straight line.

“Guess so,” he says quietly.

John pats him on the arm, nods in the direction of the door.

“Come on.”

It starts to rain.

 

 

They sit in a café that’s just this side of dingy. Neil’s gaze shifts to the window, the raindrops coming down it in streams. John just looks at him. Warms his hands on his mug of coffee, doesn’t drink it.

“Did Justin ever talk about me?” Neil asks.

He’s restless, tapping his heel against the floor, ripping a sugar sachet into pieces.

“A bit, yeah.”

“He was always talking about you.”

“He was good at his job. Really good. Committed.”

“He was committed to _you_.”

“I’ve never had a better DS. Or friend. Or – anything.”

John pauses, realising what he’s said and what it means.

“I bet he was a good brother,” he adds, “Looking out for you all when you were kids.”

Neil nods.

“If some lads were giving a kid a hard time, he was the first to tell ‘em to back off. He didn’t care who they were. He got beat up a lot, but…”

John smiles.

“It didn’t stop him.”

“I used to tell him, you’ve got a fucking death wish, mate,” Neil says, chuckles a little, “He was only a skinny little thing, but hell, he had the fucking fury of God behind ‘im once he got going. He’d fight anyone. He’d fight _you_ if he had to.”

“He did, once,” says John.

“Who won?”

John shrugs.

“Schenk made me pay for the furniture, so, I’d say he did.”

“But he didn’t leave.”

“No.”

“Then I’d say you won.”

John frowns.

“My brother wouldn’t stay with a man who hurt him,” says Neil, “Not unless he really loved him. Or thought he did.”

Something clicks in John’s mind. Shifts. He’s not sure what to do with it.

“I wouldn’t hurt Justin,” he says, instinctively.

As soon as he says the words, he knows they’re lies.

“Really? Do you remember when that masked man broke his ribs? Or those times he nearly lost his job? Or when you let him go alone after that bastard Marwood so you could save a fucking paedophile?”

Neil’s hand is gripped tightly around his mug, pain written into his face. He leans back, shakes his head.

“That’s the thing about my brother. He was so _stupid_. He was always getting into the same trouble with the same men. I said it wouldn’t end well, I _said_.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“No, no, you _really loved him_ , didn’t you?” says Neil, his voice quiet but biting, “It wasn’t your fault he got hurt, you really were going to leave your wife for him, you really were going to treat him right. I’ve heard it all before. I heard it all from _him_. Over and over.”

“I didn’t –”

“He ever tell you who his favourite teacher was?”

John’s thrown.

“He said… he used to like art, I think?”

“Mr Miller. Do you know what he did to my brother? He was _sixteen_. I was fourteen, I didn’t understand, but I bloody well do now. He was a pervert. And Justin, he didn’t see it. He was like that. He really wanted to believe he was loved.”

“Don’t we all?” says John.

Neil doesn’t reply, so John pushes it.

“Haven’t we all been stupid about someone? Really believed you’d be together, no matter what? Even when it’s all crumbling around you.”

Neil looks at him.

“Not me,” he says.

John smiles, isn’t surprised by his answer.

“This isn’t about me,” says Neil, leaning forwards.

“No. I think it is. It’s easy to sit here and blame Justin. He’s not here. But it’s a bit harder to look at yourself, isn’t it?”

“Shut up.”

“All this – _stuff_ happens. And you think there isn’t love in the world. I’ve thought it often enough. But then there was Justin. Proved me wrong.”

Neil bites his lip, hard. When he cries, John cries with him.

 

 

One morning, weeks later, there’s a package on his doorstep. On the front, his name and address. On the back, three words.

Inside:

a crumpled grey jumper, faintly stained

a huge bundle of letters, all addressed to the Serious Crime Unit, all titled _RE: John Luther_

a few newspaper cuttings – _Police Find Dead Baby In Pete Black Manhunt_ , _Police ‘Determined’ To Catch Child Killer_ , _DCI Luther Suspended Over Henry Madsen Case_ …

photographs of work Christmas parties – Rose Teller and her daughter in Santa hats, Schenk and his wife, Benny and a bottle of gin, and one that John’s never seen of him and Justin, holding each other and laughing like they can’t stop.

He doesn’t realise Alice is there until she’s looping her arm round his waist and pressing her face to his shoulder.

“Should I give you a key,” says John, “Or will you just break in anyway?”

Alice doesn’t answer.

“You know,” she says, “I still have the ashes of my puppy.”

John rereads the words of the back of the parcel.

 _Proved us wrong_.

“Yes,” he says, just, “Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a ghost that’s been haunting me ever since Luther ended. I always thought Ripley loved Luther more than he let on, but I guess we – and John – can’t ever really know, now. So I guess this is about everything that goes unanswered and unspoken when someone dies.
> 
> I listened to [All I Want](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtf7hC17IBM/) by Kodaline on repeat while I was writing this. I’ve just realised it’s actually quite a fitting song for this fic.
> 
> The title comes from the hymn _Abide With Me_.


End file.
